So Blessed To Be XX

August 17, 2012

SO BLESSED TO BE XX

I’ve seen the argument that females have privilege over males in trans* politics. That due to political positionality, trans men will invariably be privileged over trans women.

If you’re talking about people that blend seamlessly with people who aren’t trans, we can talk conditionally. However, most of the trans men I know will never know the male privilege that their trans sisters knew growing up, and here’s why. Their bodies will never conform to the expectations of society. Once their history is known (even within trans circles), it’s all misogyny from there.

Take this “female privilege” argument. I was on T. Some of my closest friends are still on T. Yet, every doctor’s appointment was an exercise in being called hysterical. Our menstrual and pelvic pain are “psychosomatic” as opposed to terrifically unusual and perhaps warranting investigation. Our visits for testosterone aren’t prefaced with discussions about cervical and endometrial cancer risks. Why? Because we have vaginas, and we don’t matter shit to the medical institution. Once they have our copays, they could care less what happens after the fact.

Let’s even look at trans politics for a minute, shall we? Trans women say that trans men should shut up in political circles. That their position is privileged and that mere identification alone (barring whether they are transitioning or even fucking blend) somehow lands them in some upper echelon of society. This is patently ridiculous, and is indicative of a politics that devalues the opinions and lived experiences of female-bodied people. This is just another way to make female-bodied people feel bad about having a fucking opinion. It is another silencing tactic, pure and simple.

On an interpersonal level, I and other people with transmasculine experience have been talked over countless times in political discussions with our so-called sisters. We’ve had our opinions diminished. If the conversation gets especially nasty, our sisters usually feel it relevant and polite to comment upon our bodies — that they wished they had X or Y feature of yours, and isn’t it all just so unfair? Surely, you get it.

In other words, another plea to our socialized emotional responses.

While I’m sure a lot of the genderqueer/gender-variant/gender non-conforming boom has a lot to do with escapism from rigid gender roles, I cannot help but wonder if it is also born out of a desperate desire to have some form of political leverage in an ever increasingly male-made political landscape. If you aren’t in a female-only space, it is nearly impossible to get a word in as a female in a feminist arena in 2012.

I’m not privileged to be female. The trans men in my life are not either. Not when they, like me, have to worry about somebody kicking in a bathroom door and taking advantage of their physiology. They’re just that much closer to people who typically commit such heinous crimes. Listen to your brothers. You might learn a lot from them.

This particular brand of horseshit leaks into other areas of feminist thought, and is a clownish reversal of the things radical feminism calls for. Oppression and social dynamics cannot be boiled down to a mere equation. Transfeminists who claim that trans peoples’ power balances are somehow reversed in transition are again losing the greater picture by completely eradicating the category of sex from both lived experience and political analysis.

4 Responses to “So Blessed To Be XX”

Thank you so much for this commentary (and beautiful image), Gallus. It’s really helpful to hear from a woman who has been in the trans cult and seen first hand how women can never escape female oppression even when trying to be men, and then to also see first hand how men claiming to be women are just as oppressive or more so than other men.

I keep remember a friend who said she wants to be a man so she won’t be raped any more. That simple. Of course she can’t prevent being raped, but passing as male to many is a great protection. And then it comes down to, who is the threat? Men. Who rape and who have raped? Men and boys. How many of the men claiming to be women and Lesbians have raped women and Lesbians? They threaten on so many levels. And to then insist they are women and Lesbians is beyound insulting.

And how sad that this Lesbian I know, who has already been raped more than once, now appears to be the very kind of person who raped her, and therefore appears to be dangerous to other women.

From the post, this comment I found as validation for female-only space, particularly XX space, “If you aren’t in a female-only space, it is nearly impossible to get a word in as a female in a feminist arena in 2012.”

We must have female-only, XX-only space, if we are to concentrate on making things better for female lesbians. I envision this as a positive, because the major alphabet soup organizations no longer recognize strictly female/XX-only space and thus those spaces have been co-opted by trans* who make it all about them. We must do for ourselves because no one else will do it for us. We must make this space for ourselves. And we can do it, we can use the patriarchal legal structures to do for ourselves and why shouldn’t we use the tools of the oppressor to benefit ourselves?

“Sexual politics ensure that women remain a sexual underclass–or rather a sex caste. Caste is somewhat different to class because it is a closed system, a complete dead-end, a “form of social stratification in which membership is determined by birth and remains fixed for life“.

CBL goes into more detail in the post. It’s rather brilliant. It also seems to tie in with Anon’s post here. How F2Ts really don’t escape their biology or the caste they were born into. A caste isn’t something one can escape.

It also exposes how bogus M2Ts and their claims and arguments are. M2Ts were never born into this caste, nor will they ever be a member of it. It’s not a choice or something one can jump in or out of. Which makes M2Ts’ behavior all the more despicable and disgusting. Because they were born into and are members of the upper caste. Which is why they feel entitled to shit all over women and demand that women submit to it and serve them – as members of upper castes so often do to the “untouchables.” Or as Mary Daly put it, the “touchable caste.”